Living in Tokyo, all I want to do is laze around.

After buying groceries with bags full of purchases at the supermarket, the two boarded the tram.

An announcement reads: "Thank you for riding this train. The next stop is Otemachi. Please exit through the left-hand door. Please remember to take your belongings with you. Thank you."

"Want some?" Uesugi Shiomi asked Hanamaru Hanabi, who still seemed a little nervous, as she handed her a spicy-flavored lollipop.

Hanabi Hanabi took it with curiosity: "Are there lollipops with this flavor?"

Uesugi Shio placed the flat backpack behind her on her legs in her pleated skirt: "YuEarth, I saw it and specially brought you a bag, take it."

Hanabi Hanabi blushed as she accepted the large bag of lollipops: "Thank you, Shio-neechan."

"It's okay, as long as you like it."

Scenes gradually faded into the distance on the tram.

At 7 p.m., the sky over Tokyo was not yet completely dark, but the heavy clouds above were already pitch black.

It looks like it's definitely going to rain tonight.

At the crossroads, the traffic lights next to the zebra crossing are bright red, and most pedestrians waiting on the road will take out their phones to check if they have received any new messages during these few dozen seconds.

If there's something to read, I'll go back; if not, I'll just flip through the pages aimlessly, reading as many words as I can to kill time.

Uesugi Shio stood next to Hanabi Hanamaru, who was carrying vegetables and fruits.

After spending the entire afternoon with her, they still hadn't found the dangerous person that Uesugi Kai had mentioned.

'It's probably just a possibility, but it's good that nothing happened.'

Although she was trying to comfort herself like this, whenever she thought of A-Zhao's tone on the phone, she felt that something was bound to happen.

—That's what her intuition told her.

A light drizzle began to fall from the sky, and the colorful neon lights continued to linger in the air, filling the place with the atmosphere of a city.

A man wielding a fruit knife suddenly appears among the passersby—this kind of animated plot could very well happen.

Therefore, Uesugi Shio began to look around, trying to find out if there were any suspicious people.

The green light came on, and a dozen or so pedestrians put down their phones and crossed the zebra crossing.

Uesugi Shio's lazy eyes were fixed on their hands holding the glowing phones, looking for any knives.

Faintly, I could hear the faint sound of sirens in the distance, like a hallucination or an illusion.

"Sister tide, Sister tide."

"Huh? What's wrong?"

"It's time to go, everyone's gone." Hanabi Hanamaru said, carrying two full plastic bags.

The rain intensified, and the soft green light of the traffic lights illuminated her face, outlining her beautiful features.

"Let's go home first. It should be fine by now."

The countdown to the green light keeps decreasing.

Suddenly, the sirens seemed to get louder.

Uesugi Shio suddenly turned around, towards the direction from which the sirens were coming: "It's not a hallucination."

"What...it's not a hallucination?"

"The sound of sirens."

"The sirens... are far away from us, what's wrong?"

Uesugi Shio grasped her hand, his usually lazy sapphire blue eyes now focused.

"Wh...what's wrong?" Hanamaru Hanabi was carrying a heavy plastic bag in one hand, which was hurting her little hand.

The rain intensified a bit.

###Chapter 165 An Event That Was Already a Foregone Conclusion###

The 0.025 mm thick transparent plastic bag made a pattering sound as it was hit by the rain, its messy edges covered with water droplets from the constant pounding.

With a "bang," Uesugi Kai sped out of the police car, soaked in the rain, and hurriedly pulled away the figure illuminated by the red and blue police lights.

-----

Let's go back to a short time ago.

"Who is he?"

"A piece of trash."

Hanamaru Yuuki, sitting next to me, spoke in an unfriendly tone, his hands constantly turning the steering wheel as the scenery flashed past the car window. "He only does disgusting things."

The constant sirens of police cars overhead pierced my eardrums. The windshield wipers swept away the water droplets on the windshield in front of me, but the fine, continuous rain quickly replenished them. This back and forth was incredibly frustrating and annoying to watch.

Kai Uesugi couldn't help but worry about Hanabi, but his father-in-law told him to stay by his side and not to make any rash moves.

He looked at his phone.

The only option is to ask Sister tide to help look after things.

Hanamaru Hiroki grabbed his phone from his pocket with one hand and said into it, "Ishibashi, take the road from Okubo and block him. Don't let that guy break through in his car."

Hiroki Hanamaru tucked the old-fashioned push-button phone into his pocket and continued driving.

Kai Uesugi recognized this road; it was the way to their house.

"Is that person's target fireworks?" he guessed.

“Judging from the direction he suddenly turned, that should be it,” said Hanamaru Hiroki. “Don’t worry too much, someone is looking after the fireworks.”

"clear."

For some reason, Uesugi Kai didn't know why that guy had set his sights on a girl he had never met before.

"Is it... a gang?"

“Two people,” Hanamaru Hiroki said. “He now has a clear objective, which means he knows Hanabi’s location and when she will arrive at Waseda Station. There is another person secretly helping him.”

“Then they…” Uesugi Kai didn’t know the background of this.

"It's just that I hold a grudge about what happened twelve years ago."

Hanamaru Yuuki gripped the steering wheel tightly, his voice heavy: "Those two guys set fire to my house before. At the time, Mieko and three-year-old Hanabi were still inside. They wanted to use that to threaten me into continuing to investigate their robbery."

The police car swerved around a bend, splashing water droplets that scattered behind its flashing red lights.

Hanamaru Yuki continued, "Later, I got leads on those two guys and arrested them. They were sentenced to eight and ten years in prison, respectively, for robbery and arson."

“I’ve been keeping an eye on him ever since that first guy, Akasaka, was released early from prison. He lived a stable life in the service industry for six years, but did he think that six years would make me lower my guard?”

The scene of the sea of ​​fire flashed through Hanamaru Yuuki's mind, and he sneered twice.

“After his accomplice Kawasaki was released from prison, the resentment he had harbored for six years began to sprout.”

As the police car drove past the south gate of Waseda University, Uesugi Kai, who was about to call her cousin to update her on the situation, frowned and said, "There seems to have been a car accident up ahead."

Hanamaru Yuuki took out his phone again, glanced at the words on the screen, and said, "It's nothing, Akasaka just got caught."

Although the topic of fireworks wasn't mentioned, Uesugi Kai understood that since his father-in-law hadn't brought it up, it meant there was no problem.

The Toyota Crown 4th generation police car was parked smoothly on the left side of the road, its black and white paint job striking in the rain.

Despite feeling reassured, Kai Uesugi couldn't help but jump out of the police car and push through the crowd illuminated by the red and blue police lights.

The fruits and vegetables on the ground were broken and rotten, mixed with some red liquid.

In front of the crowd of onlookers, a red vintage car had crashed into a guardrail, its top dented, its doors twisted, and the ground littered with debris.

Two police officers in light blue uniforms were struggling to open the jammed car door, trying to pull out the unconscious middle-aged man inside.

On the other side, Uesugi Shio stood in the crowd holding an umbrella, her hand on Hanamaru Hanabi's body. Apart from being a little frightened, her little face in the rain looked perfectly fine.

Raindrops dripped from her damp hair as Uesugi Kai walked up to Hanabi Hanamaru.

"Kai-kun..."

Seeing him getting soaked in the rain, Hanabi Hanabi tilted her little head up, her voice still weak and timid.

Uesugi Kai looked her up and down several times before asking, "Are you alright?"

Seeing him getting soaked in the rain, Hanabi pulled him under the umbrella before saying, "Hanabi's fine... Kai-kun, aren't you sick? How could you get soaked in the rain..."

"That was so dangerous... This car suddenly went out of control and headed towards Hanabi. Thank goodness for Shio-neechan and Officer Suzuki. Is that person... alright?"

She glanced at the nearly totaled car, then at the plastic bag she'd accidentally tossed aside in the frantic dodge. "No fireworks for dinner tonight... and no chili sauce or lollipops either..."

Uesugi Shio asked, "Kai, what's going on?"

Kai Uesugi glanced at the middle-aged man being pulled out of the car and said briefly, "He's just someone who's been imprisoned and is looking for a chance to take revenge."

"As expected, this was premeditated." Uesugi Shio frowned.

At that moment, Hanamaru Hiroki walked in carrying a middle-aged man with a more mature appearance, and police officers who appeared out of nowhere began to disperse the onlookers.

The man's hands were gleaming with handcuffs, and his swollen face looked miserable under the heavy rain.

"Inspector Hanamaru," Kazushi Ishibashi called out, as he and Teppei Suzuki carried another unconscious man.

Suzuki Teppei looked at the person Hanamaru Yuuki had dragged in and chuckled twice: "As expected, he didn't escape. Just as I predicted."

“It’s nothing,” said Hanamaru Hiroki, pointing to the police cars that followed behind. “Without the help of everyone at the Ushigome Police Station, this would have been much more troublesome.”

He looked at the middle-aged man with a buzz cut in his hand and asked, "What's the point of what you're doing?"

"hehe..."

A hoarse, low voice trembled from his throat, "From the very beginning, I never intended to change. Without you... if Akasaka and I had taken that money and lived a peaceful, uneventful life, wouldn't all this mess have been resolved long ago?"

"I was imprisoned for 0 years. When I came out, I didn't know anything and did useless work every day. Every time I think of you sitting in the police station looking so smug, I hate that the fire back then didn't burn your wife and daughter to death."

The heavy rain, coupled with his hoarse and low voice, prevented Hanabi from hearing what he was saying. She could only vaguely see him looking down with annoyance.

"childish."

Hanamaru Yuuki's voice was indifferent, clearly indicating that he did not want to continue talking to him, and he handed him over to the officers of the Ushigome Police Station.

Then, he walked over to Kai Uesugi and the others.

“Dad…” Hanabi Hanabi called out.